Sowing seeds of native plants is a great, inexpensive way to have a beautiful native garden. It’s a particularly good strategy if you have a large space. However, there is a problem with sowing seeds: birds and small mammals and even ants are quite likely to abscond with your seeds before they germinate. This means you’re sowing expensive bird seed!
Two strategies can help with that problem. One is to sow your seeds just before you see rain coming (or just after it’s started). This gives the seeds an opportunity to get wet and start the germination process, hopefully before they get munched.
Another solution is to make seedballs. These are balls of clay, nutrients, and seeds that you mix with water for a firm consistency and then let dry. Once dry, you can toss the balls out into your yard. The soil and nutrients protect the seeds from being eaten, and dissolve with the next rain — which could be months later. This allows you to throw your seedballs out into your garden whenever you want to, and the seeds will stay nicely packaged until it rains.
Making seedballs
Making seedballs is a bit like baking, but a lot less work. It’s a fun activity to do with kids, and only requires four basic ingredients.
- Clay: Get fireclay at an art supply store. This helps bind the balls together.
- Potting soil, compost, or other similar medium with some nutrients
- Seeds: You can get native seeds at Native Seeds/SEARCH or Borderlands
- Water
You will also need a large mixing bowl or bucket and a large cup or scoop for measuring the ingredients. You don’t need a specific weight or amount of ingredients — the measuring cup is just to keep the proportions accurate.
Mix the dry ingredients in the following proportions:
- 1 part seeds, well mixed
- 4-5 parts clay
- 3 parts nutrients
These proportions don’t have to be exact.
You then add water in small amounts to the dry mix until you can form round balls that stick together. You’re looking for something with roughly the consistency of meatballs. Make balls that are about 1 inch or so round.
You can set the seedballs out to dry on cardboard or in old egg cartons. Give them a couple of weeks to dry completely, then store in a fabric bag or cardboard box. Whenever you want to sow the seeds, toss them out into your garden or yard. If you’ve made seedballs from a mix, it’s fun to watch and see what plants come up.
Tucson Water: Landscaping Scheduling
